Making moral citizens: On Himmelfarb's de‐moralization thesis

One of the most popular and pressing problems in the attempts of contemporary Western social and cultural commentators to understand these times is the question of whether it is possible to identify a worrisome and unstoppable process of de‐moralization. This process is frequently taken to involve the cutting of the ties and identities of citizenship so that individuals are left to wallow in swamps of anomie and disrepute; swamps in which the supposed achievements of civilization are undermined by the reappearance of activities which are taken to be more reminiscent of the mythical state of nature. In this article I will examine one of the most well‐developed and intellectually plausible versions of this de‐moralization thesis. I will outline and attempt to contextualize arguments rehearsed by Gertrude Himmelfarb in her book The Demoralization of Society (Himmelfarb, 1995). I hope to show that the de‐moralization thesis is based upon a specific articulation of citizenship to civilization. I will then offer aspects of a sociological critique of Himmelfarb and, implicitly therefore, of the connection of citizenship to civilizaton. I will develop this possible critique through an account of some themes contained in the work of Zygmunt Bauman.     

Comparative public adminstration: The United States view in international perspective

In the study of comparative public administration in the United States, there are currently four directions of development associated with bureaucratic and policy models, case and component approaches, the comparative study of organizations, and application. The characteristics of these developments are outlined in this article, recent publications surveyed and future trends discussed. The extent to which there is a peculiarly American or Western tradition in the comparative study of administration is considered and issue is taken with the argument presented by Dwivedi and Nef (1982) for greater autonomy.     

The vice-presidential succession effect: Individual or situational basis?

Simonton (1981) found that accidental presidents do not perform as well as duly elected chief executives. Though this vice-presidential succession effect may be due to individual factors, such as some deficiency in personality or political experience, it might be due instead to situational factors, most notably the failure to be perceived as having legitimate power by those already in power positions. Three studies investigated the relative plausibility of individual and situational explanations. Study 1 examined 49 president-vice-president teams to determine the criteria by which running mates are selected. Study 2 looked at 69 leaders who served as either president, vice-president, or both, in order to discover if accidental presidents can be differentiated on biographical and political background variables. Study 3 scrutinized 100 congressional units in a time-series design to gauge the impact of serving an unelected term as president. The results most support a situational interpretation based on the attribution of legitimate power.     

The dynamics of interest group evaluations of Congress

We apply a dynamic spatial model to interest group ratings of the members of Congress over the period 1959–1981. Spatial distances between an interest group and the members of Congress are assumed to be monotonic with the ratings. Our pooled cross-sectional time-series data set consists of 203,387 ratings by 59 interest groups. We restrict the spatial coordinates of the interest groups and members of Congress to be polynomial functions of time. Two significant dimensions are recovered: the first dimension, which accounts for approximately 75% of the variance, represents liberal-conservative positions on economic issues; the second dimension, which accounts for approximately an additional 5% of the variance, represents liberal-conservative positions on social issues. Nearly all the interest groups and most members of Congress are ideologically consistent. They are either liberal on both dimensions or conservative on both.     

Reviews

Christopher Saunders (ed.), Eastern Europe in Crisis and the Way Out. London: Macmillan, 1995, ix + 525 pp., £50.00.

Bernard Chavance, The Transformation of Communist Systems: Economic Reform since the 1950s, trans. Charles Hauss, Boulder: Westview Press, 1994, xi + 225 pp., £13.50.

Paul J. J. Welfens & Piotr Jasinski, Privatization and Foreign Direct Investment in Transforming Economies. Aldershot, Brookfield, Singapore, Sydney: Dartmouth, 1994; xix + 295 pp.

Geoffrey Pridham, Eric Herring & George Sanford (eds), Building Democracy? The International Dimension of Democratisation in Eastern Europe. London: Leicester University Press, 1994, viii + 224 pp., £37.50

M. Steven Fish, Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. x + 300 pp., $39.50, £30.00.

Thomas Parland, The Rejection in Russia of Totalitarian Socialism and Liberal Democracy: A Study of the Russian New Right. Helsinki: The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters (Societas Scientiarum Fennica), Commentationes Scientiarum Socialium 46, 1993, 255 pp., no price.

Mark Galeotti, The Age of Anxiety: Security and Politics in Soviet and Post‐Soviet Russia. London: Longman, 1995, xi + 219 pp., £29.99 h/b, £10.99 p/b.

James G. Richter, Khrushchev's Double Bind: International Pressures and Domestic Coalition Politics. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994, xi + 263 pp., £37.00.

Jon Jacobson, When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, xi + 343 pp.

Robert Zuzowski, Political Dissent and Opposition in Poland: The Workers’ Defense Committee “KOR”. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1992, ix + 293 pp. $65.00.

Ya. Ya. Grishin, Dramaticheskie sobytiya v Pol'she, 1980–1981 gg. Kazan: Izdatel'stvo Kazanskogo Universiteta, 1993, 240 pp.

Robert J. Brym with the assistance of Rozalina Ryvkina, The Jews of Moscow, Kiev and Minsk: Identity, Antisemitism, Emigration. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan in association with the Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1994, xvi + 142 pp.

Allan Laine Kagedan, Soviet Zion: The Quest for a Russian Jewish Homeland. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994, xii + 157 pp. £30.00.

Erich E. Haberer, Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth‐Century Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, xv + 346 pp. £40.00, $59.95.

Mary Buckley, Redefining Russian Society and Polity. Boulder: Westview Press, 1993, xvii + 346 pp., £13.50.

Frederic J. Fleron & Erik P. Hoffman (eds), Post‐Communist Studies and Political Science. Methodology and Empirical Theory in Sovietology. Oxford: Westview Press, 1993, xv + 387 pp., £39.95 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Chris Ward, Stalin's Russia. London: Edward Arnold, 1993, xxii + 241 pp., £10.99 p/b.

J. T. Costlow, S. Sandier & J. Vowles (eds), Sexuality and the Body in Russian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 346 pp. + index, £30.00.

Larisa Vasil'eva, Kremlevskie zheny: Fakty, vospominaniya, dokumenty, slukhi, legendy, I vzglyad avtora, Moscow: Vagrius, 1992, 544 pp.

Larissa Vasilieva, Kremlin Wives, translated by Cathy Porter, New York: Arcade, 1994, xvii + 251 pp.     

Health care labor relations law--understanding the issues

The 1974 amendments to the Labor Management Relations Act have created new problems of statutory interpretation in the rapidly evolving area of health care labor law. By including nonprofit hospitals under the auspices of the Act, the amendments have opened up a new area for unionization and have given rise to questions concerning the types of bargaining units that are appropriate in health care facilities. In the following article, the authors discuss these questions and other current issues in health care labor relations law. The issues include the determination of relevant bargaining units, the status of state nursing associations as labor organizations, and the ten-day strike notice requirement of the Labor Management Relations Act.